This post is a devotionally-minded overview of Matthew’s Gospel, focusing on his portrait of Jesus. Immersing myself in Matthew for a couple days and writing this was therapeutic. It helped me get my head out of the fall semester and transition into Christmas break. I hope you find it helpful, too.

Behold with me the obedient Son in whom the Father delights.

Chapter 1

God’s story of salvation is symmetrically patterned across time, and it culminates in the advent of Jesus, the Messiah, born of the Spirit to save his people from their sins. Joseph’s initial confusion over the way the story starts highlights the unexpected, mysterious nature of what is about to unfold. “God is with us,” but no one expected him to be with us like this. Joseph’s righteousness, his trust and obedience, points the way forward, too.

Chapter 2

Creation itself — the light of the skies — bears witness to the wisdom of God’s unfolding plan. Magi from distant lands come to honor the long-awaited king from the line of David. Unto us the Son is born. All the Old Testament images of hope align on this one person, Jesus. The climactic chapter of Israel’s story has begun.

Chapter 3

John, Isaiah’s desert herald, announces the imminent arrival of the day of the LORD, and then he passes the microphone to God the Father. The Father himself grabs proclaim Jesus his beloved Son. Jesus is the one in whom God delights. The Spirit clothes Jesus as the righteous king, the one who brings new creation.

Chapter 4

The Spirit leads the Son into a time of testing in the wilderness, but unlike past generations of God’s people, this firstborn Son refuses to listen to any voice except the Father’s. Truly the light of God’s kingdom is rising over the dark country of Galilee.

Chapter 5

The Son ascends the mountain and sits down to teach. He shines his light upon those who are desperately dependent on God. These are the ones who are living well and flourishing. Jesus teaches God’s Torah with unique authority, and he calls his disciples to follow him alone into true Torah keeping. True righteousness means cleaning up the outside and the inside. Whole-heartedness is the goal.

Chapter 6

The Son teaches how to do right by God and others: Praying, giving, fasting, handling your finances — all these ways of doing right by God and neighbor require inner and outer wholeness. Without inner wholeness you’ll be eaten alive by hypocrisy, darkness, anxiety, or one of the many other symptoms of separation from God. Disciples must do what is right for the purpose of honoring the Father. He sees, and he’ll respond. If you’re unsure of that, stay until the end of this story. You’ll see.

Chapter 7

The son teaches what inner wholeness looks like: Pronouncing judgment, prophesying, and miracles — these are not necessarily the fruit of true righteousness. True righteousness that embodies the Torah and the Prophets is this: Treating other people like you want to be treated.

Chapter 8

The Son, clothed in the Spirit, proclaims the kingdom with signs of new creation: He heals sickness, casts out demons, and calms storms. Those who receive his help call out to him with faith and desperate dependence.

Chapter 9

The Son has all authority to heal, forgive sin, call disciples, and receive tradition-shifting attention and devotion. He embodies the Torah and Prophets. No one has ever seen anything like him, but not everyone likes what they see. Jesus makes clear what the problem is: They misunderstand him because they misunderstand what God delights in. His opponents don’t understand the Torah and the Prophets.

Chapter 10

The Son gives his authority and Spirit to his disciples to spread his new creation kingdom. He teaches them to fix their minds and imaginations on the Father’s love, attention, and care.

Chapter 11

At this point, a fog of confusion sets in: The Messiah is at work in the world, but even John, Malachi’s “Elijah who is to come,” is unsure about Jesus’s way in the world. Blessed are those who repent and are not offended when they behold the revelation of the Son. The Father delights to reveal the Son to those who are desperately dependent upon him.

Chapter 12

The religious leaders are offended by Jesus’s way in the world, and they decide to kill him. Jesus again speaks to the issue: Those who have a problem with him misunderstand what it is that God takes delight in. They misunderstand the prophets. Jesus is indeed the servant of Yahweh in whom he delights, the one spoken about by Isaiah. A greater king than Solomon is here, a prophet greater than Jonah, but as the tension reaches a boiling point Jesus withdraws to the outskirts — no spotlight is needed for him to usher in his new creation kingdom.

Chapter 13

How can Jesus and his way in the world possibly be kingdom come? A scribe trained for the kingdom understands the mystery of the faith: The Son’s new creation kingdom will be built slowly over time. Many won’t recognize it for what it is until the end. Jesus tells stories to explain the mystery of the faith to those who have ears to hear, those desperately dependent upon God. The people of Jesus’s hometown are offended by his teaching, but disciples who stay close to the Son receive more and more revelation.

Chapter 14

As Herod wonders who Jesus could possibly be, John haunts the story and foreshadows Jesus’s end. The revelation of the Son shines more and more brightly. He’s a stunning image of Yahweh! The Son sets a table for his followers in the wilderness, and he makes a way to walk across deadly waters. The disciples’ perception of Jesus flickers — clear one minute, distorted the next — but in the end they proclaim, “Truly this is the Son of God.” They won’t understand what these words mean for quite a while yet.

Chapter 15

The religious leaders bicker with Jesus and show that their heart is far from God, but a desperate “Canaanite woman” receives miraculous help from the Jesus. The Son heals those who come to him for help. Again, the Son sets a table in the wilderness, looking remarkably like his Father, the God of Israel.

Chapter 16

Jesus points his disciples to consider their religious leaders a model of what not to be; the disciples must not be hollow-hearted like them. Jesus then turns their attention to himself. “Who do people think I am?” Peter responds by proclaiming Jesus “The Messiah, the Son of the living God,” but Peter stumbles over the the Messiah’s way in the world: “The Son of the living God will be obedient unto death, and he will be raised after just three days.” How can these things be?

Chapter 17

Shining with supernatural light, the divine Son is climactically revealed to Peter, James, and John. The Father again grabs the mic, and proclaims to the disciples — and the reader — that Jesus and his way in the world is indeed what God’s delights in. The Son’s words and his ways are confirmed by the Father: “Listen to him.” With this confirmation, Jesus repeats himself: It is necessary for him to suffer, die, and rise again.

Chapter 18

Jesus focuses now on teaching his disciples what it looks like to embody his way in the world. Imitating the Son, they must lower themselves and become obedient children, listening to the Father and doing what is good for others. Imitating the Father, they must put no bounds on their forgiveness.

Chapter 19

On the outskirts of the land, the religious leaders put Jesus to the test, but he won’t participate in their superficial debates about the Torah. The Son embodies the Eden ideal that the Torah points towards, and he calls his disciples to do the same. His followers must become like children. They must be like the Son, desperately dependent on God.

Chapter 20

In the Son’s kingdom, the last will be first. It takes time for disciples to truly understand what this means and what it should look like, but two blind men point the way forward: With desperation, they call out to Jesus for help, and they receive it. Following the Son requires desperate dependence.

Chapter 21

The Son triumphantly enters Jerusalem. He is praised by children and rejected by the religious leaders. Jesus enacts Jeremiah’s denouncement of the temple and its leadership, as the memory of John continues to haunt the story and point the way forward. They didn’t recognize John’s authority, and they won’t recognize Jesus’s either.

Chapter 22

The Son teaches love of God and neighbor as the fulfillment of the Law and Prophets, but he doesn’t fit the religious leaders’ expectations of the Messiah. As they poke and prod, Jesus points to the reality of the resurrection. The only way to be fit for the kingdom of heaven is to recognize the Son’s authority and the wisdom of his way in the world.

Chapter 23

The Son strikes the religious leaders with the rod of his mouth. He forcefully denounces them as corrupt, withering chaff that will not stand in the coming judgment. Disciples take note: These people teach the Torah, but they neglect true righteousness. Jesus mourns for Jerusalem. He cares deeply, and as the story unfolds, you’ll see: He does something about it. He acts.

Chapter 24

The Son announces the destruction of Jerusalem and calls his disciples to work faithfully and wait expectantly for him to come back. The mystery of the faith is on full display: The end of the age will not be now; it’s in the future. He will come again, and it’s imperative that his disciples wait well. If would be disciples turn away from their hope that Jesus will return and they choose to live in self-abandonment, they will meet the same end as the hypocritical religious leaders. Whole-hearted hope endures to the end.

Chapter 25

The Son tells stories to help his disciples know what he means. They must wait expectantly like people waiting for a ride to a party; they must work with the gifts God has given them like employees who require no supervision. It won’t always be like this. The Son will indeed come in glory. At that time, he will distinguish the righteous from the wicked — not on the basis of who teaches well and preaches and does miracles. The only way to enter the Son’s kingdom of eternal life is to follow him: whole-hearted desperate dependence upon the Father, obedience unto and through death.

Chapter 26

The plot to kill the Son comes to fruition as his body is anointed for burial. Behold the mystery of the faith unfold. Jesus explains the meaning of his death: It’s the fulfillment of the Passover ritual. The new covenant is initiated with the shredding of the Son’s innocent body and the spilling of his precious blood. His disciples strain to understand the depth of what Jesus is saying, and they fail to grasp the depth of their need. As the Son is betrayed, he desperately prays and clings to the Father’s will, refusing to demand his own comfort. At his trial, he tells the truth regardless of the fact that he will suffer for it. “I’m Daniel’s Son of Man, and you will behold my glory.” In the darkness of night, they strike the shepherd, and his sheep scatter.

Chapter 27

They plot to kill him, but he refuses to use his words to save himself. The Son is crucified as the king of the Jews, and he’s enthroned on a cross. Jesus cries out with grief and points his disciples to Psalm 22 to help them understand what they are witnessing. He’s surrounded by inhumane beasts that mock him, “If God delights in him, God would not let this happen to him!”

Behold the beloved, obedient Son in whom God delights! They torture him, but the Father delights in the his precious Son because in this moment more clearly than ever he embodies the Law and the Prophets — love of God and neighbor despite the pain! Behold the only one who ever embodied the Torah every day of his life, all the way to the grave!

If you know the psalm, you’ll know the story is not over. “He has not hidden his face from him but has heard when he cried to him.”

Chapter 28

At his birth, Joseph ushered the body of Jesus into a manger, and at his death another Joseph ushered the body of Jesus into the grave. Now, the Father ushers his embodied, eternal Son into new creation (Matt 28). Death has no power over the obedient Son. Creation bears witness with light like lightning. The first witnesses of Jesus’s resurrection clutch his feet. It’s not a vision; he’s not a ghost. The eternal Son has brought humanity through death and into the eternal life of God. Some disciples behold and doubt, but that doesn’t change the fact that new creation has indeed come in Christ. God is with us now and forever more in the Messiah, Jesus.

☩ Father, we need your Spirit and wisdom to follow your Son. Keep us from the evil one, and lead us into whole-hearted devotion, we pray. Not our will but yours. Come quickly, Lord Jesus. May you ever be our delight. ☩